Ayame's Chronicles- Team Efforts
#7 of Ayame's Chronicles
In our last chapter, Ayame and Takami just set out for a perplexing summer camp with two of Takami's other friends who seemed just as involved in digimon as he is. I wonder what they can get into together?
As the trio slept through the bus ride, they were awoken by their ears popping to a sudden change in altitude. Rua rubbed his eyes while complaining and looked out the window. All he saw was a grey fog. "What kind of fog exists so high up?"
"It's probably a low cloud. Guess camp is on a mountain. Hope no one falls off," Suri joked.
"HEY. That crap isn't funny. I don't have a problem with heights. It's just the fact that I don't like thinking about the possibility of PLUMMETING from said height," Rua barked in his defense.
"Don't think of it as a fear of falling, more like... a fear of heading towards the ground at an extreme velocity and colliding with it, splattering your innards and bones amongst the road," Takami said with a smirk.
"Go screw yourselves!" Rua said in a huff while turning away, only to smack his forehead against the window, causing a laugh from both Takami and Suri.
After the long ride to camp, they finally arrived. The first thing they did was to find a nice quiet cabin, which Suri found just along the perimeter of the camp. Their cabin had around 4 bunk beds and a lot of space for storage. Despite them all being close friends, Suri convinced them to divide the sleeping arrangements between a guys' and girls' side. Rua also planned a head and brought an inflatable mattress set, so everyone could have comfort wherever they slept. Once they were settled, they decided to let their Digimon out of their digivices.
Suri let out her Dorumon, who immediately started wandering around and fiddling with various objects around the room. Rua let out his Labramon, who climbed to a top bunk and claimed his spot quite loudly. Takami let out Ayame who greeted her new acquaintances then took a top bunk above Suri. Since there was no announcement for the campers when they got off the bus, they sat in their cabin and conversed until they got bored.
A couple of hours later, Rua was half-hanging off of his bed, face first into a pillow and snoring quite loudly. Takami stayed up with Suri talking about how their digivices worked until the sun finally descended over the mountain range in the distance. Suri took the opportunity to prepare herself for bed, and Takami decided to kick Rua awake. Rua simply flung the nearest blunt object at Takami's direction, but failed epically and nearly hit Dorumon, and received a chunk of shining metal into his back.
"Dammit, that hurt!!" Rua yelled while being awakened by Dorumon's Metal Burst. "You threw something at me, I hurl an attack at you. Then we all become happy!" Dorumon exclaimed happily while waving his arms. Ayame giggled at his gestures, reminding her of a child.
Rua, now grumbling, slumped into the other bathroom to get changed for bed. Takami sat around patiently on the air mattress for a bathroom to open up. Suri was the first to re-emerge. Takami did a double take at her attire which consisted of a long t-shirt that reached to her knees, covered by a purple translucent nightgown. He was speechless.
"What the heck are you staring at?" she asked in a somewhat confused and pissed off tone.
"I didn't think you were the ... WOW." Takami said, dumbfounded, trying to avert his gaze to somewhere else. "I thought you weren't the feminine type, Suri."
Suri sighed and crawled into bed. "My mom talked me into it, said my summer would be more interesting. No clue what she's talking about but whatever. Oh and tell Rua if he comes within five feet of my bun, he will be stricken down with a dagger I keep on my person."
Takami nodded but then looked confused, "Why just Rua? He isn't the only guy in the cabin, ya know."
Suri looked at him for a moment, "Well I just trust you almost more than my parents, Dorumon's clueless, and Labramon's playing king of the hill in a bunk bed. Rua just so happens to be too... bold for my tastes," she replied as she turned away, quickly slipping off into sleep.
Takami now having a confidence boost in the night, went to change for bed. Unfortunately, Rua came out too late and wasn't able to hear her warning. So being the rebellious teenager he was, he decided to use the ol' fashioned shaving cream feather trick. (Censoring out how bad that went.)
Takami returned to the room to find a smiling Suri and a scared Rua pinned to the wall with a dagger piercing his shorts, just below the family jewels. "... First time forgiveness?" he asked.
Rua whimpered out, "Dorumon sneezed and threw off her aim. Can you help me out here? I don't think she'll ever miss again..."
Takami smirked and just simply crawled onto his mattress and pretended to sleep. Ayame got up and duct taped his mouth shut so he wouldn't make too much noise. A couple hours later, Labramon eventually got off his high horse and helped him down.
Ayame was the first one to wake up the next morning around 6:30 am. Before she did anything, she took time to observe the sunrise, one of the few things she remembers from the digital world. Takami rolled off his air mattress and onto his face, followed by a mumble of complaints while waking up.
"Floors hurt..." he mumbled sleepily while trying to crawl back under his blanket, only to be stopped by Ayame's tail wrapped around his ankle.
"Oh no you don't. You're up now!"
Takami whined, "Uggghhh,.. Five more minutes, mom. I don't want to go to school today." Then successfully released himself from her tail's grasp. Ayame frowned but then smirked. "Fine, stay asleep."
Takami dozed happily until something just landed on his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He shot up from his sleep to see Ayame smiling at him and wagging her tail happily. "Good morning," she chimed sweetly.
"Why did you have to *cough* land on my stomach?!"
"It's one of the few things I could think of. Try learning to get up earlier." She got off of him. "Fall asleep again and I will throw Labramon at you."
Takami grudgingly got out and stumbled into the bathroom.
After breakfast
The camp took up three hours in the afternoon explaining why the camp was established. Takami and his friends learned that since the world was more peaceful without the constant arrival of Digimon, it wasn't necessary to have kids with Digimon running around being vigilantes. The camp was also designed to train their skills in an organized manner. Finally, it created a community so that tamers wouldn't feel excluded for being different.
After the purpose was stated clearly by the disciplinarian, the head counselor, a middle aged woman who looked around her twenties, Ms. Izuru appeared at the podium. She went explicitly over what she did and didn't accept while they were at camp, along the lines of selfish fighting, gang wars, and absolutely No KILLING. Once she left, their technological expert came up and explained how the digivice works, its functions, and the essence of digisoul itself. It turns out that it is a physical manifestation of a bond between a tamer and their Digimon that went from internal willpower combining with the aura of data that surrounded the tamer's partner, causing it to flare up into little bits of a certain color. Then they were released to enjoy themselves and all the camp had to offer.
Takami's group left while Rua was talking about raiding the cafeteria for food, only to be reprimanded by Suri about worrying over his stomach too much. He retorted that she was only jealous that he could eat so much and still look trim (NEVER ATTEMPT THIS IN REAL LIFE. IT WILL ALWAYS END BAD!) That earned him a power slap to the face, leaving a bright red hand-shaped imprint.
"You totally had that one coming," Takami commented.
"Guys are lucky they can burn carbs so fast. It's not so easy for us," Suri huffed angrily while walking ahead.
"If it helps any, I think you look nice, Suri," Takami added, hoping to ease the tension the two created.
"Why thank you, Takami. It's nice to feel appreciated by someone," she turned around to smile at him right before she bumped into a taller teenager, who looked around 17, and fell down. "Ow..."
The teenager then had a group to surround him, who consisted mostly of guys around his age and a few slightly younger girls. "Watch where you're going, new meat..." he practically growled.
Rua went over to help Suri up. "Lighten up. It was an accident, after all," Takami said in Suri's defense. The older teenager then gripped Takami's jacket and lifted him slightly so they were eye level.
"The name's Chad, returning student. Learn to respect your seniors. Today, I'm feeling gracious, beat it before I get mad!" He then placed Takami down and pushed him back towards his group, earning a couple of oooh's from the surrounding guys.
"Don't talk to him like that!" Suri barked at him. Takami also grabbed Rua's shirt collar before he tried to rush at Chad.
"Hey, little girl, I wasn't talking to you. Don't think I wouldn't teach you a lesson either," Chad smirked.
"...Little?" Suri repeated, fuming internally. One of her pet peeves was being insulted on her 'slight' underdevelopment physically.
"Suri, Rua. Come on, let's go. We have better things to do than scrap now, Takami said while walking straight through the crowd of guys, soon followed by his two friends. They left the laughing group of older people for their cabin.
Suri was busy storming around the room, flaming about the 'little' comment from earlier. Rua just sat quietly as he watched, not wanting to attract any of her rage at the moment. Takami let her vent out her frustrations, knowing a few tricks on how women express their thoughts. Ayame was arguing with Labramon about leaving hair all over the place. Too bad Ayame wore clothes and didn't shed.
"How dare he call me little..." Suri muttered angrily from a corner.
"Hey Takami, how come we didn't kick his ass? You know all three of us could have taken him down easily," Rua asked from his mattress.
"The way I see it is that he values his reputation above anything else here. If we take that from him, we would not only have to deal with him trying to get it back, but also anyone else who wants to take a shot at it as well. Seriously, a couple of ex-freshmen taking down a group of juniors and seniors? That'd inspire rebellion with newcomers, causing unnecessary conflict, eventually leading back to us. It's less troublesome just to hang back with all other newcomers," he replied monotonously from his floor bed. Ayame looked down at him from her bunk.
"You considered all of that within the four seconds he was close to you?" Ayame asked.
"Mostly, and also for the fact that I wasn't in the mood for scrapping, and for the fact that I think the head counselor was giving me some weird vibes," he added with a slight shiver.
Suri finally calmed down enough to actually listen to what they were saying. "So what do we do in the meantime?"
Rua thought for a moment. "How 'bout we learn about this digisoul they mentioned? It caused our Digimon to get a lot stronger, going from in-trainings to rookies."
"Not only does it make them stronger, it also makes us stronger too..." Takami said.
"What do you mean 'make us stronger'?" Suri asked.
"Well when I first got my digisoul, Ayame was in a bit of trouble and I ran in. I thought I wouldn't make much of a difference, but somehow I hit at least 10 times harder than normal. It was weird, but invigorating!"
"Then can you show us?" Rua asked.
"Yeah... about that... I honestly have no clue on how it got there in the first place," Takami responded nervously, causing the other two to sigh. Ayame then plopped down next to Takami.
"It only appeared because Takami cares about me," she chirped happily.
"Just what are you going on about?" Labramon yawned from his bunk, awaking from his nap.
"He got stronger because he loves me~" Ayame giggled, enjoying her teasing.
"Shut up Ayame," Takami said while crossing his arms and turning away.
"Oh you know you do~" she added while wagging her tail in front of his nose, causing him to sneeze. "Admit it!"
"I said shut up!" he threw a pillow at her face for emphasis. "And I so don't."
"If that's true, then why are you blushing?" she pointed out while poking his reddening cheeks.
Takami stormed out of the door in frustration, from being called out. Ayame giggled, "Someone's grumpy." The other two smiled before going back to talking.
Three days later
It was a rather slow day, since there were few activities being held. The trio were all staying up and talking about what they'd like to happen in the middle of the night. They were scared out of their skin when their digivices started beeping and shining rapidly.
"Why are our digivices tripping out...?!" Rua asked while picking up his, not knowing what to expect.
"If I remember correctly, the tech guy from earlier this week said something about this. It's supposed to be an alert and to press the button third from the left." Suri added, while doing so. A three-dimensional holographic map popped up from the screen with three red blinking dots, with six green ones, and arrows pointing towards the red.
"Well instead of sitting here wondering, who is up for a little late night stroll?" Takami asked while putting on some dark blue clothes.
"I am so in." Rua replied, dressing in the same way.
"Are you two insane?! It's after curfew. If we get busted, we are so in for it." Suri pointed out, changing herself.
"Don't worry Suri, we'll protect you from the big bad monsters of the night." Takami said while smirking.
She smacked his shoulder while proceeding to opening a window and jumping out. "Just try to keep up," and then ran into the darkness, Takami and Rua following.
After maneuvering through the camp grounds, they came across a thick fog.
"Well whatever those red things were, are through this fog," Rua said while closing his map.
"Then let's do this already," Takami added while pressing the side button. "Ayame, realize." A swirl of code came from his digivice and made up the shape of a certain fox Digimon.
"Is it time to play, Takami?" She said while stretching a little.
"Dorumon, realize." Suri said, causing Dorumon to appear.
"It's time for fun, right Suri?" Dorumon asked excitedly.
"Jinsa, realize." Rua said, causing Labramon.
"I've been itching to scrap all day," Labramon said easily.
"Jinsa?" Ayame asked. "Where'd that come from?"
"What? Can't a Digimon give himself a name?" Jinsa asked her.
"Fair enough. Now let's go!" they all then charge into the mist.
The mist turned out to be a lot thinner than they expected. And in the middle, it seemed to let up.
"So this is the inside of a digital field?" Takami asked while looking around.
"Looks like it. But where's the tar-" Rua said before jumping out of the way from random rocks flying at him. "What the crap was that?!"
"I could take a guess," Takami said while turning his digivice to the direction they came from. "Just as I thought. Gotsumon, three of 'em."
"Perfect. One for each of us!" Ayame said while launching herself at one, giving it a spin kick to send it flying backwards.
Dorumon followed Ayame in charging the Gotsumon, except that he used his strong tail to send one in a different direction, leaving the last one for Jinsa, who bit down on part of the Gotsumon's leg and flung it at a tree.
The three Gotsumon were easily overwhelmed by the sheer physical force of the three rookies. Even their tamers noticed a difference about each of them. When they first digivolved to rookie, they at least needed an attack to finish off an opponent, but were doing just as good without them.
"Well that was easy," Ayame said while tossing her opponent down and brushed her hands off.
"Kinda boring if you ask me," Jinsa pouted slightly.
"Um, guys? I think you watch what you wish for..." Dorumon pointed out.
"What makes you say that?"
"Possibly the fact these guys are Digivolving..." Dorumon pointed at the three figures of Gotsumon that were now glowing and growing. Their shaped turned from humanoid to more of a quadruped beast form. Horns grew from their head and a long tail sprouted as well. When the light disappeared, three dinosaur-like Digimon roared at their ex-opponents.
Takami pointed his digivice at one of them. "Monochromon... Champion level data types? This could be problematic..." he winced slightly, not knowing if Ayame could handle a champion.
Jinsa smirked and faced a Monochromon. "The thing about these guys is they may have a tough hide on top of them, but vulnerable stomach. Not that bright either, so I can imagine a way we can beat these guys."
Ayame nodded, "That would make things interesting. Shall you do the honors?"
"Gladly," Jinsa said before maneuvering under a charging Monochromon. "Labra Fang!" Jinsa's fangs grew at least four times the normal size and caught hold of the Monochromon's tail, then were actually able to get it noticeably airborne.
Dorumon ran under where Monochromon would have landed and aimed upward. "Metal Burst!" A silvery projectile flew directly up to the Monochromon's stomach, and pierced straight through, successfully coding it back into an egg.
"That's one down," Ayame said while taunting the next one with several light kicks to the face. The enraged champion level charged at her recklessly, only to miss by her jumping out of the way and met a tree, face first. Its horns were lodged deep into the trunk and rammed it with enough force to knock it down, leaving it at a 45 degree angle.
"Diamond Storm!" Ayame yelled while firing her mini-projectiles at its exposed stomach, reducing it to code.
"Two, Two down," Dorumon smirked while turning to the last one. After seeing his two friends go down so easily, this last Monochromon was a little apprehensive, but didn't rush at first.
"Crono horn!" it said lowly as its horns grew and charged at Dorumon, who evaded, but just barely.
"That was close," Dorumon said to itself only to be greeted with a smack to the back from the champion's tail, causing him to fall onto his side.
The attacking Monochromon skidded to a sharp turn before turning around again to Dorumon. Before Dorumon knew it, a flash of yellow collided with the side of the charging attacker.
"Don't forget there are three of us here..." Ayame said, leaving the Monochromon unbalanced and made it collide with a rock instead. "That was a little too close for comfort. We should finish this one off fast."
"Doubt he's going to fall for anything to flip him over," Jinsa added.
"How bout we outmuscle it? If we combined our attacks, I'm sure something outta happen!" Dorumon asked.
Jinsa thought for a moment. "That might work. You up for it?" he asked Ayame.
"This would definitely be interesting, to say the least."
The Monochromon turned back around to the rookies, who were in the same general area. He thought that would make for easier targets. "Crono horn!" it said again as it charged.
Ayame and Dorumon fired off a Diamond Storm and Metal burst simultaneously. Then Jinsa inhaled sharply. "Hyper Bark!" he yelled while firing a ring of sound from his mouth. When it caught up to the other previous attacks, they seemed to meld together and went faster, colliding with the Monochromon's attack and made an explosion. When the smoke cleared, only the coding of the last Monochromon was left.
Takami smiled, "Wow, you three just took down champions without even digivolving!"
"And the coordination of your attacks seemed so planned," Rua added.
Ayame hmphed in triumph, "Of course they were coordinated. Some digimon are just naturally coordinated with synergy in battle. It's kind of like how you humans can band together in order to survive, except each battle brings out our survival instincts."
The three Digimon stood there proudly getting praise from their tamers while the digital field faded into a clear night once again. The group of six returned to their cabin to get some well deserved rest, not knowing they were being watched...